Fascism or Socialism - take your pick

Every time there is market turmoil, the US federal government arrogates more power to itself. The people do not know that the very reason their money is in trouble is the constant inflation caused by the Fed and the moral hazard caused by US government intervention. Once again they will swallow the lies that it is all the fault of the evil men on Wall St, and only the government can pull us out of the mess. Like in the 1930s, we are entering an era when to all but a tiny minority, government control of the economy seems the only option. Socialism or Fascism, a command economy wedded to nationalism and complete obedience to our masters.

I wasn't fully convinced of the veracity of Austrian economics before, but every day I can see that events are unfolding precisely as its proponents predicted. In a better world, people would be turning to Ron Paul. Here he is in 2003 warning about Fannie and Freddie:

No point of me sitting behind my desk stressing about the fact that the world is going to hell.

especially when its completely out of my power we have a bunch of morons running the country and controlling our futures. It is what it is. People have had to put up with it for centuries, and I don't expect us to be any different.

I'm with you on this one. Since I've started learning about this, so often it's the Austrians who were right. But, not being an expert in the area, I'm not totally sure. (Is anyone an expert?).
Here is another take on it

But there are analytic ways in which Austrians and (some) Post Keynesians differ too, in addition to differing on policy recommendations.

On that front by the way, Iâd now describe myself as a somewhat Austrian Post Keynesian! I am much more sceptical about the benefits of regulation and government intervention than I was before analysing this crisis. But I certainly donât believe in âhanding it over to the free marketâ, as Peter does, because that begs the question of what the âfree marketâ is. All markets are determined by legal structures and laws to some extentâthey canât be otherwiseâand therefore we can design the laws surrounding those markets more intelligently than we have in the past.

The key redefinitions Iâd like to see relate to ownership of capital assetsâchanging the nature of shares and the valuation of houses. But thatâs a topic for a future blog.

Here Iâll just emphasise the ways in which Peter and I differed analytically on the night. The key point is the attitude to how money is created. Notice the time that Peter began to argue that for every debt there had to be a saver somewhere? Thatâs where I differ: that is a âfractional banking, deposits create loansâ analysis. As I have intimated, I have a âcredit market, loans create depositsâ analysis that argues that this innate balance Peter (and other Austrians) perceive doesnât exist.

There were other analytic differences as wellâit doesnât all come down to differing degrees of scepticism about the benefits of government. And as I concede, thereâs much less difference between me and the Austrian position on that than there once was.

No point of me sitting behind my desk stressing about the fact that the world is going to hell.

especially when its completely out of my power we have a bunch of morons running the country and controlling our futures. It is what it is. People have had to put up with it for centuries, and I don't expect us to be any different.